Withdrawal of orders of DA/ DR freeze and payment of arrear: 48th NC JCM Meeting

 Withdrawal of orders of DA/ DR freeze and payment of arrear: 48th NC JCM Meeting

Minutes of the 48th Meeting of the National Council (JCM) held on 26.06.2021 vide DoP&T OM No.3/4/2021-JCA dated 14th July, 2021

5.12. Item No. NC-48/6 / 21: Withdrawal of orders of DA/ DR freeze (DoE).

Leader, Staff Side, stated that the 32 lakh Central Government Employees and 50 lakh pensioners have been affected by this decision of the Government and there is a need to immediately release the next instalment of DA/ DR and arrears from 01.01.2020. He said that it was a drastic decision to pause DA/ DR for one and half year & that more than 80% of the serving employees as well as pensioners are low paid and are worst hit by this decision.

Shri Guman Singh , Member, Staff Side stated that while the Government has decided to freeze the DA/ DR in a situation when the cost of living is increasing rapidly, causing increased hardship to the employees .

Shri Sadhoo Singh, Member, Staff Side, stated that the retired staff have been specially hit hard by the freeze of DA/ DR.

Shri J.R. Bhosle, Member, Staff Side, also spoke regarding the need to roll back the Government’s decision in this regard .

Secretary, Staff Side, mentioned that the Hon’ble MoS, Finance made a commitment to release the withheld three instalments of DA/ DR (due from 01.01.2020, 01.07.2020 and 01.01.2021) on the Door of the Parliament which sought to be honoured.

Addl. Secretary (Pers.) , DoE informed that the decision to withhold three instalment s of DA/ DR was taken with the approval of the Cabinet, as per which, arrears are not to be paid . Chairman stated that the decision was taken by the Government in view of difficult circumstances faced due to the Pandemic and extremely heavy burden on the exchequer to deal with the various requirements such as vaccination, development of infrastructure etc. He assured that the Government is fully sensitive to the difficulties being faced by the employees and the pensioners and that a decision in this regard would be taken by the competent authority in due course.

Decision: Chairman informed that the matter will be placed before the Competent Authority for an appropriate decision as early as possible.